


The Denny's Gang

by SherlockMalfoy



Series: Grid Links [9]
Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers Dino Thunder, Power Rangers Mystic Force, Power Rangers Ninja Storm
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Denny's, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Retro Rangers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 18:33:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14676944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockMalfoy/pseuds/SherlockMalfoy
Summary: After the conclusion of the Overdrive Mission, the Retro Rangers (minus their Red) still make time to meet up and hang out. Sometimes they go on adventures. Sometimes they just live their lives. This is not about those times.This is about all the time they spend together after a mission, or just meeting up for their usual chit-chat through the years.(A Grid Links one-shot post "Once a Ranger" up through SPD.)





	The Denny's Gang

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based on [this post chain](http://the-lady-bryan.tumblr.com/post/173262139691/narashikari-the-lady-bryan), and is dedicated to tumblr user [universalmorphingrid](http://universalmorphingrid.tumblr.com) who's post is responsible for this fluff ball of a fic.

Four of the five 'Retro Rangers',as the Overdrive team referred to them, usually met up around once a month. Driving (or in Kira's case sometimes flying) in from all over to meet up in Angel Grove. None of them could really figure out WHY Angel Grove. Adam assumed it was simply because it was easy to get to. Xander's theory was that Angel Grove was so steeped in mystical energies that it just sort of drew Rangers to it naturally. Like some sort of Ranger Mecca.

Adam couldn't argue with that too much. It is what happened to him, Tommy, Rocky, Aisha, Kat, TJ, and Cassie after all.

It had sort of become habit to hang out and catch up with everyone. Sometimes Rocky tagged along, sometimes he kept an eye on the dojo.

Once in a while, on the rarest of occasions, the Retro Rangers would get word of a situation outside the purview or area of the active Ranger team.

"You guys feel like an adventure?"

"But we need a red. Without Bridge..."

"Isn't that where Conner opened another camp?"

"Can he still morph?"

"Yeah... but don't tell Ethan."

That was how days like today usually started.

The Retros get together, morph, borrow the nearest Red that could morph and wasn't doing anything at the time, and take down a threat.

And afterwards... everyone met at Denny's.

Any suggestions to go elsewhere were always denied by Adam who, as it turned out, was always the one who had to pay the bill. And do most of the driving.

What he wouldn't give for an active teleporter...

**o0o**

"I think we've been to every Denny's in California," Tori said, using her fork to push the remnants of her dinner around the plate. "Some of the cooks have started memorizing our orders."

"Sometimes I wish we'd fight something in say... Florida. I could really use a vacation." Kira was doodling on a napkin with her eyeliner. Xander peered over her shoulder, so she moved to block his view.

He settled back into his part of the booth. "Next time we get together, we should go to a bar."

"Oh no. Bad idea. I can't risk paparazzi seeing me out drinking when I should be, y'know, in another country." Kira kept doodling, but folded the napkin away when Adam came back from outside.

"We've got a problem," he said when he reached them, not even sitting down.

"What kind of problem, Boss?" Xander asked as Tori took a few more bites of her food. She knew what that look on Adam's face meant by now. And it was never good.

"The thirty story kind. Come on. My friend Bill's wrangled up some old zords but the Rangers they belong to... not exactly a whole set anymore."

"But we need a red and Conner just left."

Adam sighed, taking out his wallet and his phone. "I'll get the bill. You guys head out to the car. I've got one more call to make."

Kira frowned at him. "You're not going to call HIM are you?"

"We need a red. School's out and Jase is busy in New York with your manager."

"Oh God... but he's so exhausting when he's not the leader."

"I know," Adam said. "But we don't really have a choice."

"Please, anyone but him. Wes? Eric?"

"Sorry Kira..." he said.

Once his team had gone outside and Adam paid the bill, he made one last call. It rang out, so he tried again. It got picked up the second time.

"Hey Tommy, I need a huge favor... Does your Zeonizer still work?..."

**o0o**

"So THAT was Tommy?"

"Yeah... Dr. O's nothing special, really," Kira said blandly from the back seat of Adam's sedan.

"Nothing special? Did you see what he did with that zord!? That was insane! I don't think Dustin could have even pulled off a move like that!"

"Conner could," Kira said.

"Yeah, but where did HE learn it?"

Adam sighed from the driver's seat, thankful that Tommy couldn't take Xander up on the offer of an after battle victory feast. Even though they had literally just eaten right before being called out to fight a giant slug monster in the desert. His three teammates kept arguing for a while about who was a better Ranger. Tommy or literally anyone else they'd worked with.

"You know," Adam said once it had quieted down and he pulled off on an exit, "If someone else is willing to pick up the tab this time, I could tell you stories about Tommy that will have you laughing for days."

Kira perked up, already searching her purse. "Okay, but I get to pick where we eat."

Adam nodded, very thankful that for once, he didn't have to be the responsible adult at the dinner table.

**o0o**

"Hey guys," Adam said, sliding into their usual booth at the Denny's in Angel Grove. "Sorry I'm late. Tommy had this big pow-wow last night and Rocky and I didn't get home 'till four this morning."

"Tell me about it," Kira said, wearing sunglasses indoors and sitting in the darker corner of the booth. Not that there was one, but the light usually wasn't as bright. They'd figured out this was the perfect hangover booth after Xander's birthday bash.

"You're in my color, Boss," said man pointed out as Adam sat down and reached for the empty coffee cup that had been left for him by his friends.

"Yeah... about that..." He held up his wrist, gave it a quick twist, and showed them his restored Zeonizer. "I'm back to Green."

"But I'm Green on this team."

"I know."

"Not so loud," Kira mumbled as she doodled on a napkin. Her apartment had napkin doodles from every Denny's (and a few I-Hops) that the group had been to over the years. Little drawings she'd busied herself with. Sometimes random little symbols or designs. Other times poor attempts at the monsters they'd fought together. She often showed them to Trent, and he'd help her improve her drawing skills. She'd help him learn to play the guitar. Or the piano. Or whatever instrument was around.

Tori smiled and reached up to pat Adam's shoulder beside her. "Hey, you're still our leader. Even if we do have to play for our own teams for a while. You know we'll always have your back no matter what color you're in."

"Though do find another color as soon as possible," Xander said. "You're kind of cramping my style."

"At least you get to still use an axe," Kira muttered from her corner. "So... not so bad."

"Yeah. There is that," he said, reaching for the menu and looking it over.

"What, you're not getting your usual?" Tori asked in confusion. Adam always ordered the same thing, every time, with a coffee and a glass of Sprite with no ice. Every time. For years.

Kira watched him from behind her sunglasses curiously.

"Yeah..." Adam said. "About that. Sometimes... tastes change along with the clothes. How's the salads here?" he asked Tori, who usually got one when they weren't monster fighting. "I think I'll have that and some toast."

"super buttery?" Kira asked.

"Yeah... super buttery," he said, causing the rest of his pick-n-mix team to smile as they remembered the Red that could never join them.

"To Bridge," Xander said, lifting his coffee cup. The others followed suit. "To Bridge," they said together, while Tori added, "May his toast always be buttery and his smiles more infectious than the common cold."

**o0o**

The battle was over. Bridge wasn't wearing red. It didn't matter. He knew who they were, even if he didn't know that they knew who he was. Not that his team could stick around long anyway. SPD and most of Time Force were needed back in their own times.

As the Rangers regrouped after the battle, and certain Rangers decided to go mingle with the newest addition to the extended family... the Retros congregated together and made after battle plans. "We're gonna need a bigger Denny's," Tori said.

"I'm going to need a new line of credit," Adam lamented as Ninja Storm, most of the Dinos, the Zeos, the Mystics, one Turbo, and the entire original roster of Rangers had all agreed to go grab a bite to eat after the battle. "Jason alone will put me in debt."

He couldn't see Rocky's grin behind his blue helmet, but he could hear it in his voice. "That's why we find an all you can eat buffet, Froggie. And you make all the other team leaders pay for their teams."

"So who gets Tommy?" Conner asked.

"That's... a good question," Rocky said, glancing over to the man in question as he talked to the Megaforce Rangers. "Well, he's the Green Ranger again so..."

"Technically he should be paying for everyone since he's head of all this mess," Conner said with a shrug.

"Yeah right! On a teacher's salary?! They'd have to take out a mortgage on the house just to pay for you, Rocky, and Jason," Kira said, giving her teammate a light, playful shove.

In the end, Adam paid for Justin plus the Zeos. Jason paid for his team. Conner for most of his. All the leaders took care of their own at the all you can eat buffet. But it was to Adam everyone handed their credit cards to deal with payment because according to everyone else, "You're the only one that looks like a responsible adult here."

**o0o**

Six months after the big battle in Harwood County, and the disaster of a post-battle meal at an all you can eat buffet in Mariner Bay where every single one of them were now banned due to the fact that "all you can eat" doesn't mean eat literally everything in the place, the Retros plus Rocky were once again in their usual Denny's in Angel Grove.

"Whoa... Adam, you don't look so good. You okay?"

"I'll be fine," he said, looking to Xander in the hangover corner. "Could I?"

"Oh yeah sure, no problem Boss," he said, sliding out of the booth so Adam could have his seat. Rocky slipped in beside him as the girls squished in to make room for their Mystic Green. Kira dug through her purse and pulled out her trusty sunglasses. "I know they're a bit glittery and all but-"

"Thanks," Adam said, reaching across and taking them from her and putting them on. "I just can't shake this headache."

"Maybe it's a migraine," Xander suggested.

"How long has it been going on?" Tori asked.

"We went to the doctor this morning," Rocky said for him. "Everything looks... well, normal."

"Except the fact that I've had a freight train running through my brain for a week."

Kira frowned. "Wait... a week?"

Rocky and Adam both nodded.

Kira hummed but didn't say anything.

They ate, caught up, and Tori for a change took the bill.

**o0o**

"Guys you're not going to believe it!" Adam said, sliding into the booth quickly

"Your mysterious headache is gone for good?"

"No, better than that."

"Okay okay," Tori said, stopping the excitement for a moment. "On the one to ten scale, Adam, what is today?"

"It's a four. Head hurts but not the kind I want to crawl under the table."

"Good," Kira said from the hangover corner with darker than usual sunglasses. "Because I didn't want to move."

Adam waved dismissively. "Okay so you guys know-"

Xander glanced at Kira. "Is this about that mystery guy that turned up in Reefside? Or about the rest of the mystery people that turned up in Reefside?"

"Neither. Can I get on with it?"

Tori cast a disapproving look to Xander, who promptly hid behind the menu. "Hey, they added a new dessert..." he said.

"Guys, this is important to me, okay."

"Sorry Adam. Please, do go on."

"Rocky and I... passed our first interview with the adoption agency."

Kira, despite her hangover, couldn't help but chime in, the volume of her own voice in the corner causing her to wince some. "Adam that's great news! I told you moving into a bigger place was going to be a big help."

"Yeah. That was great advice. Jase helped us move in, which really cut the costs on hiring movers and made it easier on us... with my head and Rocky's back and all."

Tori frowned at him disapprovingly. "You should have said something. Me and the boys would have been more than happy to help you move. Especially with all the students you've been recommending us to."

"Have you guys decided how old you want to adopt?" Kira asked curiously.

Adam nodded. "We don't care how old the kid is. We just want to give 'em a home. A lot of families were broken up by what happened in Harwood County and helping a lot of those people in the wreckage really made us want to do something more, you know. That and I think we're ready."

"You two are going to be great dads."

In light of the great news, his friends picked up the tab.

**o0o**

The Retro Rangers didn't meet up for quite a while. Kira had to take some personal time in order to help her Reefside based friends and Ranger family deal with a major crisis relating to a bizarre pseudo-Ranger lizard man Adam and Rocky had helped Jason with months ago.

The scale and scope of the crisis was such that for everyone's safety it was best if the pick-n-mix Rangers kept to their own corners for bit.

However, when all was said and done, with peace and a certain paleontologist returning to Reefside, the Retro Rangers were summoned to their Denny's.

Much to Tori's surprise when she arrived, the first to do so, their usual booth was taken. But a table near the back, a bit away from everyone else, already had Rocky sitting there waiting for everyone.

"Where's Adam?"

"He's running a little late," the man said as she sat down.

Not much later Xander and Kira arrived, having met outside and came in laughing, sharing a joke between them. When Kira dropped down into her seat beside Tori, and Xander to Tori's right, that left a seat to Rocky's right, and the one at the opposite end of the table from Xander empty. "Where's the Boss?"

"You know he hates when you call him that, right?"

"What? He never says anything."

"It's Adam. You know he's too polite to say anything."

Xander shook his head and shrugged. "I've been doing it this long. Too late to stop me now."

Rocky chuckled as he checked his watch. Kira, after looking around to make sure nobody close enough could eavesdrop, started talking about the hell months she's had in Reefside dealing with what she liked to call "The Creepy Clones" situation. Tori and Xander had only heard reports of what was going on. Rocky knew a lot more, was a lot closer to the situation just by sheer virtue of having been close friends with Jason, Billy, and the rest. He knew right away that some of what Kira was telling her teammates and friends were censored for their benefit.

The Red-Blue Ranger was just glad it was over because not long before they learned Tommy and Kim came back, and the impostor was sent packing, Adam's headaches seemed to vanish. Kira was just finishing up when he spotted Adam across the dining hall.

"Okay guys, we have a huge surprise for you," Rocky said, getting their attention. "No Ranger talk, and be nice," he said, watching their confused faces before standing to greet the wayward Black-Green Ranger. "Was starting to think you wouldn't show."

Adam smiled and stepped aside, grinning as a boy stood there, hands hidden in the long sleeves of his blue and red shirt. "Everyone, I'd like you to meet Bridge," he said, resting a hand on the 11 year old's shoulder and guiding him to the seat beside Rocky. "Bridge, these are my friends."

"Hello," he said, a gloved hand poking out from his sleeve as he waved at them. "Can I have some toast now?" he asked, turning to Rocky. "You said there would be toast."

Adam smiled and nodded. "This place has the butteriest toast in town," he said.

After the initial shock had worn off the three other Retro Rangers, they welcomed the boy with open arms and immediately doted on him.

**o0o**

Growing up surrounded by Power Rangers, one tends to pick up on things that they normally wouldn't. Like the fact certain people always wore certain colors with very little deviation. For example, his aunt Kira and Tori Hansen wore much Yellow and Blue, almost to the exclusion of all else. His parents, having had two colors each, tended to wear mostly the color of their active power set, but still mixed it up with their first colors - red and black.

His uncle Xander tended to wear a lot of green as well. But he mixed it up with black and sometimes a nice neutral brown or khaki.

So when he attended his first ever Rangers reunion at the age of 13, he didn't need to know a person's name or where they came from to know what color Ranger they were, nor what colors they might have been before.

It was at one such reunion, after his favorite Rangers - Kira, Tori, and Xander - had brought him belated birthday presents, that Adam had found him sitting quietly away from everyone with a phone and stylus in hand. His gloves were too thick to allow him to use his finger on the screen. "Dad," he said when Adam quietly pulled up a chair to sit with him. "How did you and the other Retro Rangers meet?"

"Well..." Adam said, rubbing the back of his neck. "We're Rangers. Kira was one of your uncle Tommy's students so we were bound to meet eventually. And Tori already knew Kira from an adventure they had together years ago. Though I suppose Xander's a wild card no matter how you look at it-"

"Pops says some weird ghost showed up in your bedroom and told you to be a Power Ranger again."

"Yes, well, er, I mean... Yeah. Yeah, that happened."

"And Kira said-"

"Okay, yeah. So... there was this team and they lost their powers to this really nasty guy called Thrax. So the Sentinel Knight decided to make a new team from ex-Rangers. There was me, Kira, Tori, and Xander-"

"And there had to be a Red Ranger too right? But... the only Red Rangers that come to Denny's with us are sometimes uncle Jason and Pops."

Adam sighed. He knew he couldn't tell his son the truth. But he couldn't, and wouldn't, lie to him either. So... he decided the next best thing was... omission. It was really the only avenue he COULD take without being a liar. "Well," he started. "The truth is, the Red Ranger from our special team came from the future. He's not a Power Ranger yet but one day he will be. He'll be the Red Ranger of a team called SPD. Unfortunately, that's a long way off from now."

Bridge looked at him suspiciously, almost as if he could sense that Adam wasn't quite telling the whole truth, before shrugging. "I guess hat guy Wes can have a girlfriend from the future, anything is possible."

"Not just his girlfriend," Adam said, ruffling the boy's hair. "Almost his entire team came from the future."

"Really?"

"Really."

**o0o**

The four Retro Rangers were seated in the usual booth, having their usual orders and working on their fourth pot of coffee when a black glove slammed the end of the table with a piece of paper beneath it. Xander, sitting on the end, jumped, spilling coffee down his shirt which caused Kira to nearly choke on a crouton, which made her wife Tori instantly try to pull her out of the booth to perform the Heimlich, and Adam... sat there unfazed and sipping coffee.

"This is an outrage!" Bridge declared angrily.

"What happened this time?" Adam asked.

"He gave me a C. Me! His own nephew! He gave me a C! No one knows more about Ranger history than I do!"

"Except for your teacher," Adam pointed out. "He did write the text book on it, after all."

"But-"

"And he did live through most of it."

"So did you!"

"Not so loud," Adam admonished him. "Some of us still prefer to keep our alter egos a secret."

"Come on. It's not like literally everyone in this place doesn't already know. You guys have been coming to this same place, to this same booth, for years. They even named a meal platter after you guys! The Retro Slammer," Bridge said with a pout as Tori brought him a chair from a nearby empty table before helping Kira sit back down in the booth. Xander was still wiping at his shirt with a wad of napkins.

"I'm not calling Tommy to get your grade changed. You either do the work like everyone else, or drop the class and take it again next semester with another teacher."

"But-"

Kira, after taking a greedy gulp of water, smirked at him. "I told you not to take any of Dr. O's classes at the academy. He only gets tougher with age."

"You can say that again," Adam said. "I'm still sore from sparring with him two weeks ago."

"That's just you old age, Boss," Xander quipped, which earned him more napkins thrown in his face.

**o0o**

"Did you guys hear? A-Squad's MIA," Tori said, looking up from her info pad. "This means B-Squad is up next."

It was a somber lunch in the Angel Grove Denny's that day as Adam's friends tried to get his mind off what it meant for B-Squad's Green Ranger.

"He's ready. You know it. We know it. And we all know it works out fine."

"I know... but... he's my son. I can't NOT worry about him," Adam said, absently stirring his coffee. "Now I know how my parents felt never knowing if I was in danger or not when I'd sneak off in the middle of monster attacks."

Xander slid the plate of buttered toast to him. "Yeah," he said. "But at least you have an advantage here."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You know he's been trained right. Some of your oldest friends went to teach at Newtech City. And that boy's been taught by the best of the best even outside of going to that place."

"Yeah, plus his team has his back. Always has and always will. Just like you've got us, and your other teams."

Adam picked up a piece of toast, stared at it, and gave a weak smile. "Yeah," he said. "You guys are right. He'll be fine."

**o0o**

The four Rangers stood on the sidewalk opposite what used to be the Denny's in Angel Grove. They watched as the bulldozers tore down the rest of the structure that had been damaged in the rogue monster attack on the Ranger Mecca.

"Why did it have to land on our place?" Kira asked. "I mean, would it have killed the thing to move about eight yards to the left?"

Tori attempted to rub soothing circles onto her wife's back, but it wasn't working.

Bridge was staring down at his feet. "Sorry guys... I'm still getting used to using the Blue one."

Adam sighed. "It's alright, son. I remember my first zord change. It was weird and takes some getting used to."

 **"But the Denny's!"** Xander exclaimed from where he'd fallen to his knees on the sidewalk. " _ **OUR** _ Denny's..."

Not that Adam would admit it, but he snuck in the night before with some of his old friends and stole their booth from the wreckage. It currently sat in a garage in Newtech City where Jason was going to fix it up for them.

**o0o**

When the Sentinel Knight first appeared to him a week after his promotion to Red Ranger of B-Squad, Bridge couldn't believe it.

When he came out of the time portal the Sentinel Knight had created for him to discover HE was the missing Red Ranger from the Denny's gang all these years, he wanted to say something when he first met them, or rather when they first met him, but instead what came out was, "So the spooky ghost man brought you guys here, too huh?"

During the course of what would later be called, but for himself he'd always heard it titled, the Overdrive Mission, he learned a lot about his teammates that he never would have known otherwise. Like the fact that in this time, Kira was seeing a guy named Trent, who was a bit iffy on whether or not their relationship was working or not.

And that Xander slept with a green stuffed rabbit that had a magical talisman sewn into it to keep nightmares at bay.

He avoided talking to Adam unless he had to which had prompted Tori to talk to him about the importance of communication in teamwork, and to ask if he was having trouble because the Black Ranger was in charge instead of the Red Ranger like it usually should be.

"No, not at all," he'd reassured her. "It's actually better this way. I've only been the Red Ranger for like, a week before all this. Plus, he's done this way longer than the rest of us. He's kind of intimidating."

"Adam? Intimidating?" she'd scoffed. "In his dreams. He's too much of a teddy bear for that."

Bridge couldn't explain why he thought that even if he'd wanted to.

**o0o**

"Bridge is back!"

"How long was I gone?"

"About eight hours."

"Bridge... why are your dad and his friends waiting in the lobby downstairs?"

The Red Ranger blinked at his team, slightly confused. "What?"

"They just sort of... started showing up asking if you were back yet. Did you tell anyone about your top secret mission to the past?"

".....No...." he said.

"Then how did they know you were gone?"

"It's a really long story," Bridge said. "Hey, can we debrief? My dad probably drove a long way to get here so... I should probably go take him to lunch or something."

The debrief didn't take long and Sky gave him the rest of the day off considering the fact he'd just spent a significant amount of time in the past on active duty. But he had to be back in the office bright and early the next morning.

"Hey, Sky," he stopped long enough to ask. "Do you know where the nearest Denny's is?"

"Denny's?"

"Yeah. It's... kind of a Retro Rangers thing. And they have the best toast."

"Toast... of course..."

"The butteriest!

**o0o**

The complete Retro Rangers team, with finally everyone on the same page, sat in a rounded corner booth. Adam in the middle with two Rangers crowded in on either side of him.

"So... this is surprisingly more awkward now than it was when I was 11," Bridge said, picking at his plate. "You guys kept meeting up together all this time, and getting substitutes for missions because I wasn't around yet."

"Pretty much," Kira said. "But we always ordered extra toast, even though most of us wouldn't eat it."

"You did?"

Kira nodded. "We totally did."

"You guys must have been pretty floored when my dads brought me that first time."

"We knew you'd turn up some time. We just didn't realize that you'd get to meet us the way that you did."

"Time travel is really weird."

Kira nodded her agreement. "So, now that we're all finally together and our Red Ranger knows he’s our Red Ranger finally," Kira said, reaching into her purse for an old crumpled napkin. She spread it out on the table so they could all see. "I've been working on this for years. I think I've finally got it perfect."

Bridge peered at it. "What is it?"

"Well, all the regular teams have their own logos or whatever. I thought we should have one, too. With a piece of all our Ranger symbols mixed in. When Adam changed from Black to Green, I had to dig through the archives to find the old Zeo symbol and study up on it before I could swap out the mastodon and start all over again."

"I like it," Tori said, looking to the rest of the team for confirmation.

"It's in the shape of a D," Adam pointed out.

"It wouldn't be if you didn't insist on us always going to Denny's," Kira countered.

"If I'm always paying, then we're going where the food is both good and cheap."

Xander laughed. "And that, Adam, is why you're the responsible adult."


End file.
